Does spending soo much money on a HDMI cable make a huge difference?

[Moyt]

And personal experience on DisplayPort?
In my case I need to quickly find a MiniDisplayPort > DisplayPort cable for my m18x.

Edit:
If anyone knows where to get a good quality 'mini displayport' to 'displayport' cable please let me know, thanks.

 

[m4gicfour]

Monoprice has them. All of the cables I've purchased from them have been high quality.

 

[Jetster]

http://www.dealextreme.com/ Will most likely have one. They ship world wide

 

[FordGT90Concept]

There can't be a quality difference between cables.

Lies, thicker gauge wires have lower resistance so they're more likely to not require boosting over long runs. There's also considerations of insulation (EMI sheilded/fire proofing) and preventing cross-talk (isolation).

Quality of cable doesn't really matter until you're talking 15 feet or more of cable. In short, try cheap first.

 

[m4gicfour]

http://www.dealextreme.com/ Will most likely have one. They ship world wide

Yup, they do.
Mini DP(Male) to DP (Female) 15cm (6")
Mini DP(Male) to DP (Female) 2M (6')

Those were the two I could find in a quick search, they'll need a DP to DP male cable to use them.
Like this one:
DP to DP Male 2m (6')

The DX cables are at least twice the price of the Monoprice ones, but have free shipping. Monoprice ones are probably better quality, but you pay for shipping. Both ship worldwide, price would probably end up in the same ballpark. DX usually takes at least a week to ship, where as Monoprice is 95% of the time shipped by the end of the day you order or next day. You have options.

One thing to be careful about with DX is they sell a lot of nonstandard cables (like HDMI to VGA) that will only work on some very rare devices that have non-standard output through their ports, so be careful not to buy anything wacky unless you don't mind having it be useless if it doesn't work.

Lies, thicker gauge wires have lower resistance so they're more likely to not require boosting over long runs. There's also considerations of insulation (EMI sheilded/fire proofing) and preventing cross-talk (isolation).

Quality of cable doesn't really matter until you're talking 15 feet or more of cable. In short, try cheap first.

Yeah, that one coming from bta kinda threw me for a loop. He should know better, although he was probably just oversimplifying; it's still bad advice.

 

[Moyt]

Ooops I ended up buying one of THESE

I tried hard looking everywhere and I didn't come across those links you guys mentioned. I can always cancel my order anyways.
Plus I'm not entirely sure if the m18x supports DP version 1.2 (so I might be paying extra for something I can't even fully use), but I do know that the cable is very good quality to say the least; on paper anyways.

 

[qubit]

Yup, it's a little pricey, but at least you haven't spent £100 on it...

 

[m4gicfour]

It's interesting that they don't list the conductor size in the specs of it. It's probably (more than) fine, but it's always nice to have that info. Truth is you probably overpaid by a little bit, but on the upside, if you ever have a problem with it, you won't have to deal with a company on the other side of the world

 

[Moyt]

Yup, it's a little pricey, but at least you haven't spent £100 on it...

That does make me feel a whole load better

It's interesting that they don't list the conductor size in the specs of it. It's probably (more than) fine, but it's always nice to have that info. Truth is you probably overpaid by a little bit, but on the upside, if you ever have a problem with it, you won't have to deal with a company on the other side of the world

I'm sure I won't be disappointed in the quality.
But the most important thing to question is not the conductor size, but.......... of how many online stores chuck in free lolly pops with their Display Port orders?

F'n Chupa Chup's! This alone I'm sure makes up for the money spent on an overpriced cable

 

[Sinzia]

I buy mine for $2.50/ea and they come in the color of my choosing with ferrite cores.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10243

I use monoprice for nearly all my cable needs, they've never let me down, ever, and they're one of the cheapest places to get cables from.

 

[m4gicfour]

I use monoprice for nearly all my cable needs, they've never let me down, ever, and they're one of the cheapest places to get cables from.

Yup Monoprice is fantastic but the ~$25 minimum shipping charge to people overseas kind of kills the value. It's still worth it to ship them here (Canada) but for Moyt, who's in the UK it may not be.

 

[Moyt]

By the way that overpriced MiniDP > DP proved fully useful and more. Got delivered this morning.
Not only does it give me fantastic visuals, it also gives me audio all in 1.
So looks like this Alienware m18x has made full use of DisplayPort 1.2.

The HDMI output for me didn't produce very good visual, not only that but it wouldn't display full screen; had horrible purple (not black) borders all around.
Nothing to do with the HDMI cable, it's the damn laptop.

Plugged the DP cable in and everything is full screen on my 27" monitor, nice and crisp!
No regrets now, even finished off the free Chupa Chup

 

[qubit]

By the way that overpriced MiniDP > DP proved fully useful and more. Got delivered this morning.
Not only does it give me fantastic visuals, it also gives me audio all in 1.
So looks like this Alienware m18x has made full use of DisplayPort 1.2.

The HDMI output for me didn't produce very good visual, not only that but it wouldn't display full screen; had horrible purple (not black) borders all around.
Nothing to do with the HDMI cable, it's the damn laptop.

Plugged the DP cable in and everything is full screen on my 27" monitor, nice and crisp!
No regrets now, even finished off the free Chupa Chup

Glad it's working for you. What make and model is your laptop? I'm thinking about mine with AMD Mobility graphics. Connect that up to a 1080p TV with a HDMI cable and no way can you set a 1:1 pixel mapping. It's always underscanned no matter what you do with it and looks terrible. Hey, great driver software guys.

It's a HP DV6-1216SA with Mobility HD4250 graphics.

 

[Moyt]

Cheers.
Ahh, well the display port has certainly made a nice difference.

HERE my m18x spec.

To add to that list I just recently upgraded the memory to 16gb's of Kingston Hyper X 1866MHz DDR3, and a Corsair 240gb GT SSD.